A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 23

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You are a citizen of the land of the quick fix, and you come and try your simplistic naive solutions here in Africa. You try to save a single animal from his destiny, and you end up by killing a female, sending her three cubs to lingering death, and condemning one Of the finest men you'll ever meet to the LIFE of a cripple."

"What more can I sayT" she asked. "I was wrong."

"At this late hour your newfound humility is most touching."

His low voice lashed her. "Sure, you were wrong. Just as you and your people are wrong to try and starve an African nation of thirty million souls into acceptance of another one of your naive solutions. When the damage you have inflicted is beyond repair, Will you again say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong" and walk away and leave my land and my people to bleed and suffer?"

"What can I do?"

"We have thirty days of safari remaining," he said bitterly. "I want you to keep out of my hair for that time. The only reason I don't cancel the show right now and send you packing back to your Eskimos and your human rights is that I just happen to think your father is a pretty fine man. From now on you are under sufferance. One more peep out of you and you are on the next plane back to Anchorage. Do I make myself clear?"

"Abundantly." There was a trace of spirit in her tone once more.

Neither of them spoke again during the rough ride down to the ford and back up the far bank to the glade in which the bait tree stood.

By that time Job and Matatu had a fire going. The glow of the flames guided Sean to where Shadrach lay, and he climbed out of the Toyota and went to him immediately.

"How is the pain?" He squatted beside him.

"It is a little thing," Shadrach replied, but Sean saw the lie in the gray tone of his skin and the sunken eyeballs, and he filled a disposable syringe from a glass ampule of morphine. He waited for the drug to take effect before they lifted Shadrach between them and laid him in the back of the truck.

Job and Matatu had skinned both lions while they waited, and they loaded the bundle of green salted skins onto the hood, where it would cool in the night wind.

"It's a hell of a lion," Sean told Riccardo. "You've got yourself a magnificent trophy!"

Riccardo shook his head and said, "Let's get Shadrach back to camp.

Sean drove with care, rolling the truck gently over the rougher spots, trying to protect Shadrach from the worst jolting. Claudia insisted on sitting in the back with Shadrach, cushioning his head on her lap. Riccardo sat up in front with Sean. He asked quietly, "What happens now?"

"I'll radio Harare as soon as we get into camp. They'll have a private ambulance at the airport to meet him. I'll be gone a couple of days. I'll see Shadrach well taken care of and, of course, I'll have to put in a report to the government game department and try and square it."

"I hadn't gotten around to thinking about that," Riccardo said.

"We killed a lioness with cubs and had a man mauled. What will the government do?"

Sean shrugged. "There is a better than even chance they'll pull my license and take the concession away from me."

"Hell, Sean, I didn't realize. is there anything I can do?"

"Not a thing, Capo, but thanks for the offer. You are out of it.It's between me and the department."

"I could take full blame for the lioness, say I shot her."

"No good." Sean shook his head. "No blame on the clients.

That's departmental doctrine. Whatever you do, I am fully responsible."

"If they pull your license-" Riccardo hesitated, and Sean shook his head again.

"No, Capo, they won't cancel the safari. That's also departmental doctrine. Finish the safari. Don't offend the paying client.

Government needs the hard currency you bring. Only after you have left, they'll bring out the ax for me. You are out of it. I'll be back in two days, and we'll hunt that big elephant together. You don't have to worry."

"You make me sound like a selfish bastard. I'm worrying about you and your license, not about enjoying myself."

"We'll both enjoy ourselves, Capo. After all, if I do lose my license, it will be the last time you and I ever hunt together."

Claudia could overhear the conversation from where she sat in the back of the truck, and she knew why her father did not reply.

He knew it was his last hunt, license or no license. Claudia had taken an emotional battering during the last few hours, and thinking about Riccardo now, she felt the tears well up and scald her eyelids. She fought them back. Then it was no longer worth the effort and she wept for all of them, for her father and the lioness and the cubs, for that beautiful male lion, and for Shadrach and his shattered leg.

One of her tears fell onto Shadrach's upturned face, and he stared up at her in perturbation. She wiped the droplet from his cheek with her thumb, and her voice was thick and muffled with grief as she whispered to him, "It's going to be all right, Shadrach." Even she realized what a crass and famous lie that was.

Sean had a scheduled radio contact with his office in Harare at ten every evening. The journey home was so slow that they reached camp with only minutes to rig the aerial and connect the radio to the Toyota's twelve-volt battery before the scheduled hour.

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